


shit let's be revolutionaries

by abominableBebop, d0nquix0te, scarytrees



Series: HSWC [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abominableBebop/pseuds/abominableBebop, https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0nquix0te/pseuds/d0nquix0te, https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarytrees/pseuds/scarytrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Batterwitch is going a little too far with her evil plans to take over the world. There is only one solution: spray-paint mustaches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shit let's be revolutionaries

The air filtration system in Roxy's pink cat gasmask makes her breathing sound like soft purring. Whenever she and Dirk decide to hang out just the two of them, she insists on meeting on the Land of Tombs and Krypton so she gets the chance to use it, and while breathing some normal, fresh air elsewhere is appealing, Dirk never fails to indulge her. They sit on the window ledge of a high reaching tomb, legs dangling over the side and fingers slightly overlapping each other’s on the dusty ground they rest upon. The sky crackles in front of them and they watch together as they chat.

“Don’t you find it frustrating that the Batterwitch is right there on Derse and there’s nothing we can do about it?” Roxy says with a sigh, her voice muffled by her mask. “It feels like happy coexisting, I don’t want to happily coexist.”

Dirk nods. “Think of it as waiting for the right moment, instead. I’ve been keeping track of The Enquiring Carapacian.”

"Really? Thought you said it was all bullshit."

"It is, but it's also our only indication of what the Batterwitch might be up to,” Dirk replies, shrugging. “I like keeping up on whatever news is available, even if it’s slanderous or looks like it was made on Blingee." 

The gasmask muffles Roxy’s laugh too, making Dirk yearn to hear it clearly again. She replies, “Are they still talking shit about Prospit?”

“I think talking shit about Prospit is the reason the newspaper exists in the first place, yeah.” Dirk knows what she’s going to ask next, so he pulls out a recent issue of the Dersite newspaper from his sylladex and hands it to her before continuing. “Jake and Jane pop up but not as often now that the dreamselves are out of the picture. Kind of like occasional celebratory obits. The Prospit dreamers are dead, hooray.”

Roxy lets out a long groan of general disgust and annoyance as she flips through a few pages, grimacing at a glittery pro-Batterwitch advertisement. “That’s it, I demand some form of sabotage.”

Dirk doesn’t reply right away. In matters concerning Derse, he’s always tried to veer on the side of caution, at least until he’d sliced the head off an agent and presented it on a flagpole. But he’d had his reasons for laying low and watching over Roxy’s dreamself – he knew the dangers of being on the same planet as murderous agents and the Batterwitch herself. Directly opposing them would just be asking for trouble, though perhaps some artistic fun wouldn’t come with such strong repercussions.

“I can get behind that idea,” Dirk eventually agrees. “How about we stop at my apartment to use the alchemiter and then go on a road trip?”

\----

Half an hour later when they touch down in a dark Derse alley, Roxy says, "You know, that was more like a space trip. There were no roads involved. Not until this one." She scuffs her shoe against the purple cobblestone.

“You’ve never complained about transportation via rocket board before,” Dirk says as he puts said board away.

“Wasn’t complaining, just observing. The rocket board is awesome.” She grins and skips away down the lane, scarf trailing out behind her. “Come on, Dirky, I want to ruin a witch poster!” she calls back to him.

Dirk follows behind, smiling at her excitement.

Before long, they come across a typical poster board featuring Her Imperious Condescension, probably still around from whenever she took the original black queen’s place. It’s as gaudy and horrible as expected and Roxy lights up like a kid in a candy store as she pulls a marker out of her pocket. “Hmm….” Uncapping the marker, she lifts it to the Batterwitch’s face and draws a moustache under her nose.

“Simple yet effective,” Dirk comments.

Roxy steps back to admire her addition, gently bumping her shoulder against Dirk’s. “Thank you, I’m proud of it.”

Dirk feels a prickle on his spine and becomes immediately alert. Noticing the sudden change in his demeanor, Roxy looks up at him to ask what’s wrong and sees him slowly turning his head towards a carapacian who’s stopped in the street to watch them. He has a pentagon pin on his chest and what looks like a baton at his hip. He narrows his eyes at them and the defaced poster against the building wall.

He looks like he intends to toss them into jail for illegal pictography and Roxy is about to whisper to Dirk to get the rocket board back out, but then the carapacian relaxes, gives a curt nod and a thumbs up, then continues on his way.

Roxy lets out a breath. “I suppose the witch isn’t so well liked among the Dersites, either.”

“If not, I can definitely understand why. In any case, we should be careful if you want to continue.”

“Hell yeah, I want to continue! One moustache isn’t a revolution, it’s a doodle.”

“Roxy, we’re not starting a revolution.”

Roxy scoffs. “C’mon.” She links their arms together and leads Dirk away from the first of hopefully many defaced posters. “We have to do something in honour of Jane and Jake. I don’t like that the carapacians here only ever see horrible stuff about them. Not cool.”

Dirk feels similarly protective over their friends. “It would be risky, but we can graffiti a courtyard with the spray paint we made. Lots of them would see it there, which is both the plus side and the downside. We would be seen and word could get back to the Batterwitch.”

Roxy slowly nods and thinks about it, then looks up at Dirk as they walk. “Worth it?” she prompts.

“Worth it,” Dirk agrees.

They head for a huge, open courtyard, and as expected, the area is much more populated than the first side alley. A few heads turn when the two of them approach but none of the glances are fueled by animosity, only curiosity and recognition. No one stops them or reacts in a way that would grab attention, which makes Dirk feel safer and Roxy want to give them all companionable fist bumps.

Through a series of alchemizing shenanigans involving a paintball gun and a 4-colour ballpoint pen, they had created spray paint cans with customizable colours. They both arm themselves with one can each and survey the courtyard space they have available.

“What about hope and life symbols?” Roxy suggests.

Dirk thinks about how many items he’s seen with a red trident stamped on somewhere and nods right away. “We know how fond she is of trademark symbols, after all.”

“Dibs on life!” Roxy is already heading into the crowd and fiddling with her 4-colour spray paint, fixing it on light blue for Jane. After a quick assessment of the courtyard, she decides the biggest and easiest to access area is the ground itself, where many carapacians will automatically see whatever is painted across their pathway as they head to their daily business. Roxy picks a starting point and then begins to spray blue paint on purple stone. The carapacians walk around her to stay out of the way while she paints the huge sweeping outline of the life aspect symbol. Some stop to see what she’s doing and Dirk watches the interesting scene unfold for a moment before finding the green setting on his own paint can and picking a spot to paint the symbol of hope.

After a few minutes of no interruption, a carapacian approaches Dirk, looking at the spray can curiously. “Hey, there,” Dirk says. “Want to try?” He offers over the can and the carapacian takes it, looks at it thoughtfully, and then continues to spray some green where Dirk had left off, filling in one of the parts of the hope symbol.

“Aw, making friends?” Roxy appears at Dirk’s side, resting her elbow on his shoulder and leaning against him.

Dirk looks over to see Roxy has finished her own painting and there seems to be an interested chatter passing through the Dersites in the courtyard around it. “Darn right. This little dude is my graffiti artist apprentice. “

The carapacian looks pleased with himself as he continues painting.

The background chatter grows suddenly agitated and both Dirk and Roxy look up to see an agent coming towards them. The crowd isn’t eager to move out of his way when it becomes clear he might mean harm to the two dreamers they’ve grown fond of, but Dirk hurriedly removes the rocket board from his sylladex all the same, stepping onto it with Roxy. “Looks like it’s time for us to make our getaway.” He turns his attention back to their quiet carapacian friend. “You keep that, we need someone to continue what we started.”

Roxy tosses her own can towards him too, and the carapacian nods and gives them a wave before they take off into the dark sky. Roxy holds on tight to Dirk’s waist, grinning from ear to ear as they escape. “That was fun!”

“Sabotage mission complete.” Dirk puts one of his hands over Roxy’s and threads their fingers together as he flies them back towards home.


End file.
